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Windstorm Impact on Tall Buildings

Windstorms create significant challenges for tall buildings, impacting their design and stability due to sway and motion concerns. Modern skyscrapers, with their lightweight materials, are more susceptible to wind-induced problems compared to earlier structures, leading to potential discomfort and safety issues for occupants. Key design considerations include strength, stability, and the effects of fluctuating wind loads, with wind types categorized into prevailing, seasonal, and local winds.

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nishant dubey
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6 views3 pages

Windstorm Impact on Tall Buildings

Windstorms create significant challenges for tall buildings, impacting their design and stability due to sway and motion concerns. Modern skyscrapers, with their lightweight materials, are more susceptible to wind-induced problems compared to earlier structures, leading to potential discomfort and safety issues for occupants. Key design considerations include strength, stability, and the effects of fluctuating wind loads, with wind types categorized into prevailing, seasonal, and local winds.

Uploaded by

nishant dubey
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Windstorms pose a variety of problems in buildings—particularly in tall buildings—

causing
concerns for building owners, insurers, and engineers alikeWindstorms pose a
variety of problems in buildings—particularly in tall buildings—causing
concerns for building owners, insurers, and engineers alike.

In designing for wind, a building cannot be considered independent of its


surroundings.
The influence of nearby buildings and land configuration on the sway response of
the building can be substantial. The sway at the top of a tall building caused by wind
may
not be seen by a passerby, but may be of concern to those occupying its top floors.
There
is scant evidence that winds, except those due to a tornado or hurricane, have
caused major
structural damage to new buildings. However, a modern skyscraper, with lightweight
curtain walls, dry partitions, and high-strength materials, is more prone to wind
motion
problems than the early skyscrapers, which had the weight advantage of masonry
partitions,
heavy stone facades, and massive structural members.

Structural innovations and lightweight construction


technology have reduced the stiffness, mass, and damping characteristics of modern
buildings. In buildings experiencing wind motion problems, objects may vibrate,
doors
and chandeliers may swing, pictures may lean, and books may fall off shelves. If the
building has a twisting action, its occupants may get an illusory sense that the world
outside is moving, creating symptoms of vertigo and disorientation.

In more violent
storms, windows may break, creating safety problems for pedestrians below.

criteria that are important in designing for wind:


1. Strength and stability.
2. Fatigue in structural members and connections caused by fluctuating wind
loads.
3. Excessive lateral deflection that may cause cracking of internal partitions and
external cladding, misalignment of mechanical systems, and possible permanent
deformations of nonstructural elements.

Winds that are of interest in the design of buildings can be classified into three major
types: prevailing winds, seasonal winds, and local winds.

The flow of wind, unlike that of other fluids, is not steady and fluctuates in a random
fashion. Because of this, wind loads imposed on buildings are studied statistically.

Variation of Wind Velocity with Height

VzVg(Z/Zg)1/

where
Vz
mean wind speed at height Z aboveground
Vg
gradient wind speed assumed constant above the boundary layer
Z
height aboveground
Zg
nominal height of boundary layer, which depends on the exposure (Values for
Zg are given in Fig. 1.1.)

power law coefficient

When the wind speed is such that the shedding frequency becomes approximately
the same as the natural frequency of the building, a resonance condition is created.

[Link]. Distribution of Pressures and Suctions


When air flows around edges of a structure, the resulting pressures at the corners
are much
in excess of the pressures on the center of elevation

1. Positive-pressure zone on the upstream face (Region 1).


2. Negative pressure zones at the upstream corners (Regions 2).
3. Negative pressure zone on the downstream face (Region 3).

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